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Like I said, that's all great - but not what I'm talking about. Just calling it by the same name won't make it so.

Best,

Chris

It is the very same thing, feeling oneness with your attacker is the same oneness with this moment as it is. Because you see him for what he is you have the internall spaciousness to be able to act this is truly powerful true internal power, anything else is mumbo jumbo.

what will you have left when your eighty and all your physical power has gone and your muscles sagging with age and decrepedness, the eteranlly powerfull presence of being.

"Internal power" is a vastly overloaded term. Chris is telling you that when people here on Aikiweb use the term these days, they are talking about something quite specific, which has little relation to what you're saying. This isn't good/bad or right/wrong, necessarily--it's just a different topic altogether. And it's not about what's the "right" meaning of the words--though you can have that argument if you like. You're just being warned about how people have been using the words lately in this community. Many of the flame wars we have had have been fueled by some people using the term in a very specific sense while others use it much more generally.

So tell Chris thank you and keep your eyes open because when people respond they are likely to be responding from this different standpoint.

Thank you hugh, Ive not mastered that part where I can explain what the teaching points to, because thats all it really does point!
I will try not to get hung up on the words thats why I tried to use different words that point to the same thing. It is in us all, just our perceptions/mind whatever you want to call it prevents us from acessing it.

For me the aim of martial arts points to this and through practicing the form you should be guided through the formless, because each create each other, they are both an illusion, at this state there is only being, and a deep sense of presence and stillness awakens and this is what I felt once and now im trying to search for it again, although I "know " this is uselsess. its not in the doing its in the being ;-)
Thats why for me all martial arts are relevant and no one is better or worse than another. The teaching always points to that which is within you, not something outside, or by doing this or that you will get it/feel it at some point in future, because it never comes in the future, its accessible only in this moment.

Morihei Ueshiba's teachings and doka were not unique, the concepts were not even his. Using his own colorful words he was never the less, many times, quoting others. Quoting skills and mental/physical training models established for generations. No one who actually knows and understands these things could even enter into a conversion with many who are making this stuff up in their own heads. There is a right and wrong. Telling someone they can adopt well known terminology and just make up any ol' fantasy about it and then challenge you back essentially saying that "Everyone is right about the terms" will get them and others, nowhere.

You can see it in the recent blog on standing on the floating bridge. The poem uses phrases like; Heaven/earth/man,motion in stillness, and standing in the middle and how that releases you from the mountain echo. It is a totally screwed up adoption of Morihei's own writings based on a well known powerful Asian training model. That blog entry actually conveys the opposite of Ueshiba's model, and only serves to further muddy the waters and lead people astray from Osensei's use of concepts well known throughout Asia-if not to the greater body of Modern Aikido-ka.
This co-opting of terms is as bad as the misstranslations that helped a generation miss the appropriate training to attain his skills. As seen here in the Kamae thread a while back with Ueshiba discussing six direction awareness in several places before during and after a technique and Stevens mistranslating that into "hanmi"...which doesn't have a damn thing to do with what Ueshiba actually said, much less the expansive idea of what the proper term actually means and can do for you.

Then we had another widely known concept of spiraling, and that at any one time you spiral up one side and done the other and you had a couple of long time aikidoka and Japanese speakers....totally missing that boat and discussing whether the appropriate translation for that Kanji was to eddy and swirl the legs. The reason? They still have no idea of the foundational teaching of spiral energy and how it is used in the body, and what it does to neutralize force and control it, not the least of which it being the foundation of a tremendous amount of the waza within the entire art.
Steven's has recently demonstrated the good credibility to admit he didn't have a clue what many of these things were. Also, that he just skipped over entire paragraphs of material that he found "untranslatable." Now we are learning these untranslatable things are, in many cases a road map of concepts to train internal power/aiki to create Ueshiba's power and skill.

The internet is it's own unique space where everyone can feel "equal" in a debate. Yet, in the real world, all the debates end...in person. Every one, every... single... one, who has these co-opted, personal fantasies of what these terms meant continues to fail to deliver in person up against those who know what they actually mean, and why they had value in Asian cultures spanning a thousand years. They had value because the mental aspects also delivered on the physical level.

It is no coincidence that every one of these modern practitioners-mostly Westerners- fantasizing over concepts and terms they have no understanding of always end up feeling just like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry, out there. The reason is that you can't make up stuff in your head and have it magically equal generations of well known concepts that are tried and true. But, people who actually do understand Ueshiba's training concepts and goals feel...well....they start to feel more like how he was often described. Most will never go back to the way they were training before.
Ueshiba was right after all.

Well, that *is* the debate about what the proper use of the term is, and I guess this is as good a place to have it as any.

The thing is that with people like Andy, who appears not to have seen a lot of the IS/IP debate over the past years, you have to start with the idea that there's actually a debate to be had. Look at the exchange between him and Chris--if "internal power" has always meant only some misty spiritual awareness, how's he to know it means something quite specific here?

And "here" isn't the whole Aikiweb community, either. There are still a lot of folks who have followed the arguments and still aren't on board.

I am on board, but I understand why It's contentious. We could say, here's this new set of techniques called DH-waza and it's better than yours so you should learn it. And that would be bad enough. But we want to do worse--we want to say here's this old set of techniques called what teachers have always called it--"aiki" in Japan or "internal power" more generally. And, so sorry, the way you've all been using those words is missing the essence completely. And no, we don't want to cede the use of those words because they have actual historical meaning.

People have the right to demand that the case be made, and it has been made in my opinion, but it's scattered across lots of posts and personal contact--a lot of the language really only resonates if you know the internal feeling it's pointing to. It takes a lot of work to see the whole picture. And every new guy who comes along has to make the same journey over again. Maybe somebody should write a book or something.

And yes, the old translations have not been any help at all. BTW, I ran across another good example in Prof. Goldsbury's monumental Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation #11, where he discusses translations of Budo and Budo Renshu. Here's a translation from Budo by Larry Bieri, copied whole hog from the good professor's column:

Whenever an enemy comes to grab you from the rear, you should open on to your whole body the window of the spirit (Kokoro), which has eyes facing even to the rear. Your back must move instantly and vigorously with soul and body unified in response to the unexpected attack.

And here, Stevens translating Budo, with the same words but different orthography (and how literate Japanese manage to stay sane I do not know):

as soon as the opponent attempts to grab you from the rear, you must open the eyes of your heart and the window of your mind, follow your intuition, and move swiftly and surely to the proper position to counter the attack.

Ouch. It seems clear that the first translation is trying to transmit real training advice, though the language is cumbersome and perhaps obscure (move your back vigorously?). The second seems to value flowery metaphor over fidelity to the original text. I'm afraid Stevens felt that he had to produce a book that people could understand--but all the real training information was in the hard-to-understand bits.

(Woo, first real post of the new year contains a tribute to TIE, which is a totally amazing series of columns. Happy New Year!)

It is the very same thing, feeling oneness with your attacker is the same oneness with this moment as it is. Because you see him for what he is you have the internall spaciousness to be able to act this is truly powerful true internal power, anything else is mumbo jumbo.

what will you have left when your eighty and all your physical power has gone and your muscles sagging with age and decrepedness, the eteranlly powerfull presence of being.

Andy B

This is another example of an aikido-ka making statements in direct opposition of relevant fact.
Ueshiba was known to have been escorted onto the mat and the ones holding him witnessed his body going from that soft old man feel to ballooning/ expanding and him turning to iron. So sad, as this will forever remain as just another story from the old days for the vast majority of people struggling along in their careers.

Andy
Hundreds of people around the world have now felt this in others and are beginning to do it themselves. This is part of heaven/earth/man that the Japanese have talked about down through the ages. It is a physical manifestation of mental control that actually changes both the quality of the body tissue, how it is organized and what it does to those who try to put force into it. It makes such a difference in any era, that the people who trained it stood out and were written about.
Nothing has really changed, as anyone who trains these things and does them...even just decently...still stands out in a room of budo people as does an art piece from the wallpaper.
Dan

Well, that *is* the debate about what the proper use of the term is, and I guess this is as good a place to have it as any.

The thing is that with people like Andy, who appears not to have seen a lot of the IS/IP debate over the past years, you have to start with the idea that there's actually a debate to be had. Look at the exchange between him and Chris--if "internal power" has always meant only some misty spiritual awareness, how's he to know it means something quite specific here?

And "here" isn't the whole Aikiweb community, either. There are still a lot of folks who have followed the arguments and still aren't on board.

I am on board, but I understand why It's contentious. We could say, here's this new set of techniques called DH-waza and it's better than yours so you should learn it. And that would be bad enough. But we want to do worse--we want to say here's this old set of techniques called what teachers have always called it--"aiki" in Japan or "internal power" more generally. And, so sorry, the way you've all been using those words is missing the essence completely. And no, we don't want to cede the use of those words because they have actual historical meaning.

People have the right to demand that the case be made, and it has been made in my opinion, but it's scattered across lots of posts and personal contact--a lot of the language really only resonates if you know the internal feeling it's pointing to. It takes a lot of work to see the whole picture. And every new guy who comes along has to make the same journey over again. Maybe somebody should write a book or something.

And yes, the old translations have not been any help at all. BTW, I ran across another good example in Prof. Goldsbury's monumental Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation #11, where he discusses translations of Budo and Budo Renshu. Here's a translation from Budo by Larry Bieri, copied whole hog from the good professor's column:

And here, Stevens translating Budo, with the same words but different orthography (and how literate Japanese manage to stay sane I do not know):

Ouch. It seems clear that the first translation is trying to transmit real training advice, though the language is cumbersome and perhaps obscure (move your back vigorously?). The second seems to value flowery metaphor over fidelity to the original text. I'm afraid Stevens felt that he had to produce a book that people could understand--but all the real training information was in the hard-to-understand bits.

(Woo, first real post of the new year contains a tribute to TIE, which is a totally amazing series of columns. Happy New Year!)

Well Hugh, taken in context with other correctly translated material, he was clear in drawing a distinction about intent driving the body, then progressively talking about intent relate to the soul. So when reading other passages and he opts to use soul moving the body, it makes sense. It should also be noted that this language was used by the Chinese as well for the same physical manifestation of the intent driven body being mind/ body or soul body.

I found another passage interesting where he also stated that your body must be trained so that when you move it unbalances them...essentially on contact. Does that sound familiar? What is one of the key differences you guys keep noting about the quality of the feel in someone who does this well? No need for waza as when they move your whole body moves with them. So when we take this admonition, combined with his repeated notation of intent-driven movement through in yo ho, again we see Ueshiba talking about his own skills much more explicitly than prevously realized. Unfortunately this was to an audience not always able to understand, nor others later to translate what he meant. As you now see, feel and are coming to know ; what was gibberish to them and to many modern aikido-ka, was work-a-day information to others.
Dan

Thank you hugh, Ive not mastered that part where I can explain what the teaching points to, because thats all it really does point!
I will try not to get hung up on the words thats why I tried to use different words that point to the same thing. It is in us all, just our perceptions/mind whatever you want to call it prevents us from acessing it.

For me the aim of martial arts points to this and through practicing the form you should be guided through the formless, because each create each other, they are both an illusion, at this state there is only being, and a deep sense of presence and stillness awakens and this is what I felt once and now im trying to search for it again, although I "know " this is uselsess. its not in the doing its in the being ;-)
Thats why for me all martial arts are relevant and no one is better or worse than another. The teaching always points to that which is within you, not something outside, or by doing this or that you will get it/feel it at some point in future, because it never comes in the future, its accessible only in this moment.

In Peace

Andy B

Hi Andrew.
I like and agree with what you have been saying here. I too would have called that true internal perpective before but seeing all the different views on internal and realizing from what perspective they come from I decided to rename this view, which is purely spiritual by the way where the other 'internal' views are merely at the door in my opinion.

Let's say they are beginning to enter.

One thing I would say to you is this, when you experienced what you experienced you saw, had a glimpse of true internal 'power' at this point one may realize that internal and external combine as one. Thus I call it universal and no longer internal.

Morihei Ueshiba's teachings and doka were not unique, the concepts were not even his. Using his own colorful words he was never the less, many times, quoting others. Quoting skills and mental/physical training models established for generations. No one who actually knows and understands these things could even enter into a conversion with many who are making this stuff up in their own heads. There is a right and wrong. Telling someone they can adopt well known terminology and just make up any ol' fantasy about it and then challenge you back essentially saying that "Everyone is right about the terms" will get them and others, nowhere.

You can see it in the recent blog on standing on the floating bridge. The poem uses phrases like; Heaven/earth/man,motion in stillness, and standing in the middle and how that releases you from the mountain echo. It is a totally screwed up adoption of Morihei's own writings based on a well known powerful Asian training model. That blog entry actually conveys the opposite of Ueshiba's model, and only serves to further muddy the waters and lead people astray from Osensei's use of concepts well known throughout Asia-if not to the greater body of Modern Aikido-ka.
This co-opting of terms is as bad as the misstranslations that helped a generation miss the appropriate training to attain his skills. As seen here in the Kamae thread a while back with Ueshiba discussing six direction awareness in several places before during and after a technique and Stevens mistranslating that into "hanmi"...which doesn't have a damn thing to do with what Ueshiba actually said, much less the expansive idea of what the proper term actually means and can do for you.

Then we had another widely known concept of spiraling, and that at any one time you spiral up one side and done the other and you had a couple of long time aikidoka and Japanese speakers....totally missing that boat and discussing whether the appropriate translation for that Kanji was to eddy and swirl the legs. The reason? They still have no idea of the foundational teaching of spiral energy and how it is used in the body, and what it does to neutralize force and control it, not the least of which it being the foundation of a tremendous amount of the waza within the entire art.
Steven's has recently demonstrated the good credibility to admit he didn't have a clue what many of these things were. Also, that he just skipped over entire paragraphs of material that he found "untranslatable." Now we are learning these untranslatable things are, in many cases a road map of concepts to train internal power/aiki to create Ueshiba's power and skill.

The internet is it's own unique space where everyone can feel "equal" in a debate. Yet, in the real world, all the debates end...in person. Every one, every... single... one, who has these co-opted, personal fantasies of what these terms meant continues to fail to deliver in person up against those who know what they actually mean, and why they had value in Asian cultures spanning a thousand years. They had value because the mental aspects also delivered on the physical level.

It is no coincidence that every one of these modern practitioners-mostly Westerners- fantasizing over concepts and terms they have no understanding of always end up feeling just like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry, out there. The reason is that you can't make up stuff in your head and have it magically equal generations of well known concepts that are tried and true. But, people who actually do understand Ueshiba's training concepts and goals feel...well....they start to feel more like how he was often described. Most will never go back to the way they were training before.
Ueshiba was right after all.

I was certainly associating intent with soul when I read the passage on "soul and body unified". And "moving the back vigorously" makes a whole bunch of sense given how much of this work is driven by unifying the body through the back. It's one of the first things Sensei introduced to us and I keep coming back to it in my own practice.

O-Sensei referring to people being unbalanced on contact... that came up in recent discussions, didn't it? I think it came from one of his interviews, maybe the one with Kisshomaru. Yeah, that's another reference I understand totally differently now than I would have earlier.

Graham--thanks much, I was nuts trying to figure out Dan's reference

WRT the spiritual aspects... I don't actually disagree with much of what Andy wrote, understood only on a spiritual level. But I see that level as a layer on the Aikido level, which is a layer on the aiki, which is a layer on the jutsu. Without the lower layers of an effective martial art the spiritual layer is but a "beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain."

Well Hugh, taken in context with other correctly translated material, he was clear in drawing a distinction about intent driving the body, then progressively talking about intent relate to the soul. So when reading other passages and he opts to use soul moving the body, it makes sense.

I was certainly associating intent with soul when I read the passage on "soul and body unified". And "moving the back vigorously" makes a whole bunch of sense given how much of this work is driven by unifying the body through the back. It's one of the first things Sensei introduced to us and I keep coming back to it in my own practice.

O-Sensei referring to people being unbalanced on contact... that came up in recent discussions, didn't it? I think it came from one of his interviews, maybe the one with Kisshomaru. Yeah, that's another reference I understand totally differently now than I would have earlier.

Graham--thanks much, I was nuts trying to figure out Dan's reference

WRT the spiritual aspects... I don't actually disagree with much of what Andy wrote, understood only on a spiritual level. But I see that level as a layer on the Aikido level, which is a layer on the aiki, which is a layer on the jutsu. Without the lower layers of an effective martial art the spiritual layer is but a "beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain."

High Hugh and happy new year to you.

That view of the spiritual side of Aikido is very prevalent and widely agreed upon. Alas. Until you do it.

For then you find out it is inherent in all layers but no one ever told you so to speak. The airy fairy stuff it's 'equated' with is not it, that's not spiritual but as long as people believe it is then they can also believe it's something for later or never at all and yet still look for that 'mystical' key.

Beautifully super effective. Oh and the void? If only you knew.

On the other hand such a spiritual journey, such a spiritual art done without spirit is a very confusing and disparate place.

Contrary to what the pundits write; this model, this concept might as well be on the moon. They simply have no idea what they're talking about...or doing. In the end they move and feel like every other Tom, Dick and Harry. So, what is the real value of their opinions on these subjects? Nothing at all.The next phase
1. Some will search to validate the concepts and become aware so they can talk about it, and adopt the language and use it in poetry (but still have zero).
2. For another, to find every known (and equally ill used) reference to aid in confusing and muddying the waters so they can reduce the real model to just anyones opinion on it. Truly just an attempt to do on the internet what they cannot do in person...reduce the playing field to eqal opinion. In person... (still they have zero). Heaven/earth/man in Ikebana Good luck with that.
3. Others will truly research and try to get an accurate understanding of it in Budo, so that (they don't have zero).
In the end though...there is so much talk...with everyone pretty much showing up in person...and they have zero understanding in their bodies and feel like your average gym rat or wrestler. The goal is really not for honest evaluation and growth, it is protectionism and validation for what they have been doing. Which has resulted in...so far as I know...a 100% failure rate in person.
At this point some would not change or honestly seek growth...just out of spite. Not a very bright or productive path or tactic for budo people to follow. Thank goodness there are smart people who are like good mechanics....actually doing something to fix what was broken. They will make the intellectual understanding of the concept meld with the physical ability to express it and create a budo in keeping with the classical model the exceptional warriors were always known for, and stood out in stark relief from....the budo wallpaper.
In that, nothing has really changed.
Dan

Hi Dan, for me its not in the searching, its through it. when you have searched and searched and realise thats not "it" either, this directs your attention inwards. it is not what you "think" it is.

One teacher told me its in the feeling that counts, this also is a great message for internal power too.
Being is primary, before you were given a name before form. This is the narrow gate, where you can penetrate the mind, and destroy the mind of form. Then you are connected to life.

Here is a great example that came to me today.
Many people practice martial arts, hiking rock climbing, partake in sports e.c.t. why?
primarily the answer that comes after ambition wanting to feel healthy, self defense whatever the case maybe, is...... it makes me feel "alive".

Now here is what came to me.
If I feel alive when doing something i.e Aikido, hiking, playing with kids, meditating.
Then I must of been "dead" to the aliveness in every cell of my body in me, in every moment Before. How can this be? Because I was too identified with mind and thought.

I hope you can now see what I`m saying, you can feel the aliveness in the body when all thought of form and desire has been eliminated, martial arts sports and extreme sports may temporarily give you a gateway to this, but as soon as the activity has stopped the egoic mind comes back in and we become identified again with mind and become totally associated with our emotions, so associated in fact, that we believe that is who we are, not the aliveness that was present before. LIFE! Connected with all life.

You cannot lose it, it is always there, but most of the time we cannot feel it because of mind indentification.